Trainer Bob Santos claims that WBC interim welterweight champion Mario Barrios was willing to fight IBF champ Jaron ‘Boots’ Ennis before he signed to compete on DAZN with Matchroom Boxing.
Fans don’t believe that Barrios (28-2, 18 KOs) would have ever fought Boots Ennis, because as Santos points out, he’s “High risk, low reward.” They think Barrios still hopes Devin Haney will move to 147 and face him.
It’s believed that when Haney does make a move to welterweight, which he may need to do sooner or later due to his immense 165+ lb frame, he’ll target Barrios rather than taking a risky fight against Boots Ennis.
Barrios is arguably a soft touch, with him getting easily beaten by ring-rusty Keith Thurman in 2022 and knocked out by lightweight Gervonta Davis in 2021.
Instead of fighting Boots, Barrios is defending his WBC interim title against Fabian Maidana on May 4th on the undercard of Canelo Alvarez vs. Jaime Munguia in Las Vegas.
Fabian isn’t ranked in the top 15 by any of the four sanctioning bodies at 147, and who knows why the World Boxing Council is sanctioning that fight.
Maidana hasn’t fought a notable fighter since his match against Andrey Klimov in 2018, and even that guy had lost three out of his four previous fights.
Santos insists PBC boss Al Haymon would allow Barrios to fight anybody, and that maybe a fight between him and Boots Ennis could happen “sometime.”
“We were the frontrunners for the Boots fight…”
“We were the frontrunners for the Boots fight. We agreed to fight him. They said, ‘Would you fight Boots? Nobody wants to fight Boots.’ I said, ‘We’ll fight Boots.’ I told everybody that,” said Mario Barrios’ trainer, Bob Santos, to the Sean Zittel YouTube channel.
“He went with DAZN now, but we’re with Al Haymon, and I know he’ll let us fight anybody, anytime, anywhere. Maybe that’s something that can be put together sometime with Boots. But obviously, he took off with DAZN for whatever reason, so we’ll see. Boots, Crawford, any of those guys.
“We agreed to fight him [Boots Ennis]. They approached us and said, ‘Would you be willing to fight him?’ I told everybody, ‘Of course, we’ll fight him.’ Why wouldn’t we fight him?
“Barrios is about taking on challenges. From that regard, high risk, low reward,” said Santos about what Boots Ennis would bring to the table for Barrios.
